Kristin Carlson

Strategies for Embodied Design: The Value and Challenges of Observing Movement

In this paper, we investigate the value and challenges of observing movement experience in embodied design. We interviewed three design researchers selected from a CHI2014 panel on designing for the experiential body. For each designer, we analyzed a publication describing their process of observing movement experience. By analyzing the interviews and publications, we studied how these researchers observe movement and how they articulate it in their design process. From our study, we contribute a set of techniques for performing movement observation inspired by somatics and body-based practices which we define as: attunement, attention, and kinesthetic empathy. We illustrate how these techniques have been applied by the selected researchers, and also highlight the remaining challenges related to articulating, translating, and sharing the felt movement experience in the context of design within HCI. Finally, we address these challenges by arguing for further exploration of movement frameworks from the fields of somatics, body-based practices, and movement studies as specific strategies that can be applied to HCI.

Choreography as Mediated through Compositional Tools for Movement: Constructing A Historical Perspective

Choreography is the art of crafting movement, developed through a long history of techniques. Like other compositional processes, choreography is a complex creative process that explores a variety of formal procedures that can result in unique artistic creations. Current computational systems for assisting choreography tend to be idiosyncratic, with emphasis on different feature sets of the compositional process (including movement, structure or expression). In this paper we examine existing technological systems for supporting choreography and group them by their purpose: reflection, generation, real-time interaction, and annotation. We then analyze these system features using Laban Movement Analysis, a comprehensive language for movement description, representation, expression and performance. Our paper articulates the relative benefits of these systems based on experiential aspects of choreography, and posits future directions of intelligent systems for supporting and partnering with choreography.

ActionPlot: a visualization tool for contemporary dance analysis

This paper illustrates a prototype for visualizing contemporary dance through a movement analysis tool, entitled ActionPlot. Contemporary dance is an experiential and time based art form with few available analysis techniques. Our design facilitates structural analysis of dance performance by codifying and plotting expert viewer information. ActionPlot is then useful to experts familiar with choreographic strategies and illustrates three levels; viewing for interpretation or meaning, for structural or performative information or for detailed movement information. Plotted elements include the number of performers, the performers attention and intention, the amount of effort used, tempo of the effort, the balance of the movement within the body and the time the action is performed. This process conveys information about the viewing experience in context, allowing the user to see structural and performative patterns, similarities and differences while comparing between two works. We detail our motivation, design decisions, implementation and a qualitative evaluation for the presented system.

How do experts observe movement

Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is an expert-based method by which Certified Movement Analysts observe and analyze movement. LMA is increasingly used in a variety of research fields, particularly when studying movement expressivity and computation where it is essential to generate an understanding of the observation process. In this paper we articulate the application of LMA as a tool for movement analysis in HCI research by using qualitative methods to deconstruct the observation process of LMA experts. We conducted a focus group in which 12 expert-participants observed and annotated videos of movement according to LMA categories. We transcribed their observation process and analyzed it using grounded theory in order to extract categories, concepts and theories that best explain and describe the process of observation in LMA. By doing so, we open research perspectives in which LMA can be integrated as a method for observation in the design of movement-based computational systems.

Movement awareness through emotion based aesthetic visualisation

We present an early system and user studies for visualising movement experience and awareness via an AI based generative art system, which generates an artistic depiction of the state, flow and emotion of human movement allowing the casual user/dancer to be aware of their movement choices. For this initial non-interactive setup, visualisation is based on long exposure photography and expert dance analysis in the form of movement trace forms and emotional characteristics. We evaluate our system through two user studies on emotional reception of parametric generative art and then realise this first stage application in movement awareness artistic (painterly) visualisation.

Moving Collaborations: A Critical Inquiry Into Designing Creative Interactive Systems for Choreography

The use of technology in choreographic process has been encumbered by the richness of data in live human movement and the constraints of computation. While technology is often considered a tool in choreographic process, with developments it can participate as a collaborator by transforming and eliciting creative opportunities. We specifically define ’collaboration’ rather than ’tool’ to differentiate the nature of collaboration: a dynamic and iterative process with participation from both the user and the technology. This paper presents a contextual inquiry for an interactive system used to provoke creativity in choreographic process. Choreographic process is often distributed, relying on interactions between the choreographer and dancers to develop and evaluate movement material through exploration on different bodies. Based on this interaction model we choreographed and analyzed a dance work in order to design a set of features that support system collaboration in an intelligent choreographic system. Our contribution situates the design and practice of choreographic systems in theory to explore future design of iterative and provocative collaboration. Received on 8 October, 2014; accepted on 30 September, 2015; published on 25 April, 2016

Collaborative Choreography: A Critical Inquiry into Designing Creative Interactive Systems

In choreographic process, technology can participate as a collaborator rather than as a tool, by transforming and eliciting creative opportunities. We propose that techniques such as modality shifts and abstraction are useful design strategies for provoking creative compositional choices. Modality shifts are the translation of movement data from one representation to another. Abstraction refers to the resolution and aesthetics of movement data representation that can modulate between greater specificity and ambiguity as a compositional interpretive strategy. This paper presents a contextual inquiry for an interactive system used to provoke creativity in choreographic process. Contemporary choreographic process is often distributed, relying on interactions between the choreographer and dancers to develop and evaluate movement material through exploration on different bodies. Based on this interaction model we choreographed and analyzed a dance piece in order to design a set of features that support system collaboration and agency in an intelligent autonomous choreographic system.

Designing interaction for designers: defamiliarization in user's creative decision-making

This paper explores the connection between how users interact with a computational system for purposes of designing collaborative creativity support tools. We focus on the term defamiliarization as a disorientation technique used to actively engage users, provoking innovative interaction experiences. We have looked to literature in interaction design, creativity and education to explore terminology around defamiliarization in creative decision-making processes. We identified components of user agency, system guidance and novelty as important elements to use in designing for enticing interaction and provocative results in collaborative creativity support tools.